@MirkoS77 said:
@jg4xchamp said:
In relation to the rest of its genre? IE the Japanese entries in its genre? Uh yes it is people, cut it out.
It was solid, often because they nailed feel, but where depth was concerned it wasn't exactly a favor for Batman even if we count the challenge mode (it isn't like like the likes of Ninja Gaiden n Bayo lack one, much less stuff like God Hand or whatever). It's timing often came down to generous as **** windows to work with, plenty of gadgets in combat often become redundant because really don't add much, it's why this series could never provide interesting free style footage. You the player, can't be expressive the way you can in God Hand or even Viewtiful Joe (which is on a 2d plane no less).
It's a basic spacing challenge where he moves so freely which is a direct connect to how the player works the controller, where cashing up your insta kill take downs on the specialized enemy is the more practical, efficient, n effective tactic to go with regardless of challenge scenario.
The games have always schooled other games using that combat because again Batman's always felt louder n crunchier than the likes of Shadow of Mordor, Sleeping Dogs, n Ass Creed, that and the games were paced better, and had enemies scale better over the course of the game even if the difficulty is a push over. But a skill ceiling wise, it's wildly outclassed by just about any other good beat-em up.
It's saving grace is that it benefits with the often nebulous term "action/adventure" genre, which translates into it also being compared to the likes of Zelda, Darksiders, Lord of Shadows and that ilk, and those games have mediocre as **** combat as well, so Batman comes out smelling like roses. Good games, but they aren't particularly deep. They just happen to not be painfully shallow, pretending otherwise is being a bit ignorant to what Japan's done in the beat-em up space.
Yea, relativistically sure. It's not the most complex fighter out there in comparison, but it's not simplistic taken upon its own merits. It had depth. You had to be aware of positioning, you had to take into account your combo multiplier in order to know when to be able to take down opponents that couldn't be fought against by mashing attack or counter, as so many predicate their arguments of simplicity upon.
I would never argue that the Arkham series holds anywhere near the complexity or depth respective to the best in its genre, but it's not simplistic in its own right. That the Batman games focus isn't even in the fighting genre I find to stand even more in testament to how well the fighting holds up, and can even be somewhat compared (though still outclassed).
I mean it is simplistic, positioning isn't even a thing in these games. Like objectively it isn't. Even the likes of DMC n Bayo have gap closers for moves, but it has limited range, in contrast Batman is like **** it, yolo, i'm back flipping across the pond to hit this mother fucker. There is a disconnect to Batman's combat, because the simplicity of movements are completely at odds with what you the player are doing, effectively playing a two button game.
For Bayonetta to move around, your stick movements matter, you need proper positioning n set up in a Souls game, or 2d zelda (in fact all of 2d Zelda's depth is in micropositioning), your combo multiplier is a non factor once the button prompts come up, hell in Arkham City the indicators can't be turned off till NG+ if memory serves. And the combo meter itself is color coded enough to give away, so it's a pretty basic management.
Even the alternative goons are usually hit B, and then he wails away, or you need to properly disarm them. So yeah you might conserve your takedown for them, for the sake of efficiency. But that's not particularly interesting choice in comparison to any of its genre mates.
The fighting stacks up, purely on a basic level. It's raw n crunchy, and just enough that it isn't shallow. But it's not deep, it has plenty of redundancies. And with no due respect, having another mechanic you are balancing is not an excuse to not nail that other mechanic even better. Ninja Gaiden had platforming segments in its game, and the action was killer. The platforming, well, not so much. Luckily the action can carry that excellent game. Batman similarly benefits that both its action n stealth, while not deep, aren't painfully shallow as to be unsatisfying. There is a raw power fantasy there, that is achieved by at least keeping the player honest, instead of gift wrapping it to them. And yeah admittedly City also added some nifty puzzles to its formula.
But I've never enjoyed this defense of "game tries other things, so it's okay that this one mechanic isn't that strong". As I'm of the opinion, everything you try, should be judged consistently and as far as its maximization. The question is once you've established in a critique whether or not this mechanic or that mechanic is shallow, deep, okay, meh, or anywhere in between, is what impact does that have on the greater whole of the gameplay. As gameplay is a composition, not a single mechanic or just a group of mechanics. It's more holistic.
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So lets ignore arkham now for a sec.
Here's my beef with what I'm seeing of Spiderman having played a lot of Asylum n City, and one playthrough of Origins and like half of Knight before I got bored. In Batman I know that the grappling hook is a button combination? or a different button press, and its place in combat was either to bring an enemy closer, or just a straight up bring em there so batman could do a quick clothesline, the other gadgets, eh, some of em are so pointless to even focus on using it feels like in combat as they are so much more useful in stealth, even if they have rigid rules thus being entirely dependent on the design space.
Spiderman was almost effortlessly using his webs in combat, in a manner that made me believe that's probably not a button combination because the animation could be these mixed things. If anything it's probably the same x, n y routine. Which if you wanted to make Batman look a little cooler, you had to at least get a bit up on the controller to use those gadgets in combat. It seems like this, and people in this thread have focused on "look how flashy it looks" are ignoring the idea that it's flashy with barely anything being done by the player. And that's lame.
With all due respect to Asylum n City, as I do enjoy those games, I never once thought Batman's combat was good enough for all the aping it's done, and more importantly they took the wrong fucking lessons from the Arkham games. None of Arkham's mechanics, by themselves are why those games are good. Platinum's games? yeah the mechanics are the stars of the show, their games have other strengths as well, but the mechanics are king.
Rocksteady's best work is a product of pacing, conveyance, tight level design, making the exploration tied with interesting fan service, that would be a fun little game thing to do on its own. Yeah the simplicity of the combat made it have mass market appeal, but it's critical praise is a product of things are more inside baseball. It's the creative uses of Batman and Batman things, it's why Arkham Knight is looked at as this disappointment. It felt like they ran out of ideas, because the Batmobile feels like they only neat new idea they had up their sleeve at that point. I mean it also doesn't help that they fucking did the worst adaptation of Jason Todd's story, but that's not the point.
I don't want to focus on how much this medium sucks at stories, that it couldn't even be good with Paul Dini working on em.
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